Modern Romance Collection: July Books 5 - 8. Natalie Anderson
to talk to her.’
He closed the laptop, the tension of the day and the days that had preceded it stretching the skin tight across his perfect bone structure, a perfection that was emphasised not marred by the scar, already fading to silver, along the right side of his face.
He read the unhappiness and anger in her face and felt a fresh surge of the guilt that had been his ever-present companion over the last weeks. Weeks when he had been the recipient of an immersion programme in all that being the heir apparent involved, and, in the process, feeling a new respect for his brother.
At least he now knew what he was letting himself in for. Sabrina? She was totally unprepared for what was coming, just as his mother had been, and yet had he warned her? Had he opened the door of the golden cage that had now closed? He felt a fresh surge of loathing; he was no better than his father.
‘What do you want me to say?’ He could have said he wanted her, that he had wanted her from the outset more than he had ever wanted another woman, but wanting did not excuse the fact he had taken advantage of her ignorance. Because he didn’t want to do this alone. He felt a flash of guilt.
Pride brought her chin up, but the coldness in his voice hurt more than she was prepared to admit. It was becoming pretty obvious that he didn’t require anything from her.
‘I think you’ve said enough.’
Sabrina glanced his way occasionally during the rest of the journey; his stillness was as impregnable as his profile, the shadows as they travelled through the darkness adding emphasis to the strong, sculpted planes as he stared out of the window.
What was he thinking?
It was impossible to tell. Nothing seeped through his mask, only the occasional Arctic-wolf flicker in his arresting blue eyes reminding her of the man he had been two months before. Two months being the time that had finally been considered a decent interval between being dumped by one brother and getting married to the next.
She found herself wondering what had happened to, and amazingly feeling a stab of nostalgia for, the Playboy Prince who was guaranteed to be in the right place saying the wrong thing for the cameras, smiling as he put two fingers up to the world in general and the press in particular.
Had that man, the one whose life choices kept the damage-control experts in work, gone for ever? She recalled the soft words he had murmured for her ears only when he had observed her hand shaking while they waited for the registrar’s arrival.
‘Relax, just treat this day like any other, no different than yesterday, no different than tomorrow. Don’t have any expectations—I don’t. I expect nothing of you.’
He might not but others did. The King’s senior advisor, who had taken her to one side just before the actual ceremony, had reminded her that the fate of a nation was pretty much on her shoulders.
‘Prince Sebastian is an unknown factor. He is making an effort but we all know that he is volatile, his history... I know we can trust you, Lady Sabrina, to be a steadying influence.’
‘I think it might be better if you trusted the Prince. I will not mention your comments on this occasion, but in future...’ She had taken some pleasure from the aide’s embarrassed retreat and hoped the message had reached the King that if he wanted to undermine his son she would not be party to it.
The words of an article she had read the previous week profiling the men with power in Europe came back to her. The new Crown Prince was complex, the smitten writer had claimed, referring to the glimpses of the barbaric pagan behind the urbane exterior.
Pagan? Not helping, Sabrina, she told herself, pushing away the words. The car suddenly turned off the minor road they had been travelling on for several miles and through big gates that swung open at their approach. The uneasiness in her stomach gave an extra-hard kick as the gates closed behind the car that had travelled at a discreet distance behind them since they’d left London.
The driveway, illuminated at ground level by rows of lights, seemed to go on for miles. Sabrina didn’t mind; she was in no hurry to arrive!
Finally they stopped, the uniformed driver pulling up in front of a building with a Georgian façade. This was a private house, not a hotel. Someone had told her who the house belonged to—not that the owners would be here for the duration of their stay. They had been guests at the small ceremony today. Sabrina had been introduced but she couldn’t remember their faces or names; it was all part of the blur.
For a full thirty seconds nobody moved except the man who was sitting beside the driver, who spoke into a device attached to his wrist, then he nodded and it seemed as though dark suited and booted figures appeared from everywhere.
Sebastian was already being greeted at the porticoed entrance when someone eventually came and opened the car door for her. By that point, aside from the alert-looking suited figures either side of the entrance, the security presence had vanished.
As she made her own exit she imagined them hidden in the bushes. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought. As she approached the house the feeling that had been with her all day persisted. A weird sense of out-of-body disconnection, as though this were happening to someone else and she were watching. And now she was listening to someone else’s heels crunching on the gravel, someone else was feeling the evening breeze carrying the tang of the sea on her face.
But it hadn’t been someone else that had said I do today. That had been her.
Inside the hall of the house, a magnificent marble-floored space dominated by a great sweeping staircase and lit by several chandeliers, stood her husband, his back turned to her. He was deep in conversation with three other men and a woman who was taller than two of the men, and striking with close-cropped white blonde hair set off dramatically against the black trouser suit she wore.
Sabrina could not hear what they were saying but it didn’t seem to make Sebastian happy, though he heard them out before he fired off a staccato stream of sentences.
Weirdly she almost envied them—at least he was communicating with them in entire sentences, not gruff monosyllables.
Fighting was better than indifference; she was beginning to wonder if she had ever imagined that he had been attracted to her. It made the fact that just looking at him made her tremble all the more hard to come to terms with—to live with on a daily basis.
Maybe that was what it was. She represented the duty that he resented and there was nothing attractive about duty. She didn’t know and quite frankly she was tired of trying to figure it out. Her head ached with the constant questions whirling around inside it.
Suddenly her patience, worn paper-thin, snapped. She was done with waiting. She cleared her throat. ‘Sebastian.’ Her voice, pitched low, carried.
There was a perceptible pause before Sebastian turned around long enough for her cheeks to begin to burn at the prospect of being humiliated.
An unexpected rush of anger-fuelled adrenaline kept the tears she felt burning behind her eyelids at bay.
She watched, the sinking feeling not improving as he said something that made the trio with him nod, and he began to walk towards her, his dark hair gleaming glossy blue under the light cast by the chandeliers, his scar made to appear darker by the same trick of the light.
In profile during the journey it had been hidden, but now, full face, the thin angry line on the left cheek of his lean face was revealed. The sight made her shiver as it always did, not because she found the blemish on his perfect face repulsive but because of how he had received it.
Her fault.
She straightened her spine, the reaction involuntary as he walked towards her with the long strides of someone who possessed natural athletic grace. Power refined and controlled that sent a visceral little shudder through her body.
He paused a few feet away and swept her face with his gaze. She thought she saw emotion move beneath the azure surface before his long dark lashes half lowered, making it impossible to read any further clues, and